Reconsider RTA Broadway Project – Public press conference – April 30

posted Friday, April 27, 2012

Monday, April 30, 2012

6:00 pm

at Assembly of God Church parking lot, NW corner of Broadway & Campbell

Neighborhood Support Network / Broadway Corridor

Hi Neighbors,

You and your neighbors are invited to a press conference on Monday, April 30 at Broadway and Campbell that will begin at 6pm – please send around. Speakers will include Council Members Kozachik and Fimbres, Pima County Supervisors Elias and Valadez, as well as reps from Rincon Heights, Sam Hughes and Broadway business owners.

We look forward to seeing a big crowd!

Colby Henley, Rincon Heights

This is a critical point in our efforts to get the RTA to abandon it’s outdated plans for widening Broadway Blvd to 8-lanes and instead allow a Citizen’s Task Force to provide meaningful input to re-scope the project in a way that is within budget and compatible with the surrounding neighborhoods and our desired future for this corridor. We are asking for everyone’s support in two specific ways.

1. We need a big turnout for the press conference on Monday April 30th at 6 PM in the Assembly of God church parking lot on the NW corner of Broadway & Campbell. Steve Kozachik is calling this press conference and is inviting the Mayor and other City Council Members/County Supervisors to attend as well. We need to have HUNDREDS of people show up – so rally your neighbors to attend!

2. We are asking for people to write letters to the editor of the Arizona Daily Star supporting a re-scoping of the Broadway Project and to contact your City Council Member/County Supervisor asking them to add their support to this effort. In your letters, you can emphasize the need for the RTA/TDOT to engage the Citizen’s Task Force in a serious discussion about down-scoping the project to get it back to within the RTA funding level, and to reallocate RTA money saved to other RTA ballot approved projects, and the County Bond money that was earmarked for this project to road repair within the City limits.

Please circulate this call to action among your neighbors and we look forward to seeing a big crowd at the press conference!

Here is a letter recently submitted to the AZ Daily Star by Laura Tabili from Rincon Heights (not yet published):

Councilmember Steve Kozachik and County Executive Chuck Huckelberry have recently called for reconsidering and downscoping the costly and unnecessary Broadway Project. The 1987 plan to widen Broadway is outdated in view of conditions in the street itself as well as up-to-date thinking about sustainable transportation and livable cities. Wasting $71 million taxpayer dollars we simply do not have, widening the street to 150 feet would destroy over 100 local businesses and historic properties, lifeblood of our local economy and tax base.

Up-to-date infrastructure improvements such as bus pullouts, turn bays, and properly timed lights would better move traffic while encouraging bus ridership, biking and walking along a safe and pleasant street. The Broadway Coalition calls on our elected officials on the Board of Supervisors and the Tucson City Council to reconsider this costly and unnecessary project and find a sustainable solution that will better meet Tucson’s needs now and in the future.

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